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Revised 9/13
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“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky.

Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life,” Taylor sings. 

“You assume I’m fine, but what would you do if I—

I break free and leave us in ruins?

Took this dagger in me and removed it,

gain the weight of you then lose it.

Believe me, I could do it.

If it’s all in my head tell me now,

tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.

I know my love should be celebrated—

but you tolerated it.

I sit and watch you,”…

watch how easily you erased me.

You left me, ex and friend,

but you will not erase what and who I am. 
Well, you can. But I will remain whole my own self. I belong to me. 

And I want everything that is mine back in my hands that is still in your house but I’m sure you threw all of these away like you did to our friendship:

especially the Arkansas pottery—

clay formed with my hands,

a vessel I made whole before you painted it rainbow like I asked. ….then broke me. 

My Chappell cup. My T Swift glass with a terrarium I hoped for. My poems and cards i wrote you. My dignity. Respect. Empathy. Compassion. Kindness. And our friendship. Will I ever get any of these back? Would you meet me for brunch or a walk or anything? Any fucking thing? Because it give the world for the last thing on that list. But people and relationships aren’t transactional. 

My friend.

How I miss you, my friend.  

And at the end of 2025 or before,

I will post everything I ever wrote—here and in Google docs and the backs of envelopes—

every word, every scar turned scripture.
It’s not a threat or a promise. It’s just what I choose for me. Unless maybe you meet me for a walk or brunch or dinner or drinks and we start over from scratch. Maybe I’ll change my mind. And not because you asked for that. But because only I, me, controls me. 

Because no one sent you here. Here. You read all my words on your own. 

Found them on your own. Then you used them against me to end our friendship. Was our friendship really that unmeanifnful? That cut. Too much. Who the fuck does THIS to someone like me who only ever poured goodness into you? Into what we had as friends?And none of them were mean or hurtful. They might have hurt you. But I told you that was never what they were. They were mine and me processing my reality. They have been that since I was a child. They were and are and will always be all love and pain in their purest form—words and emotions. 
I have to make sense of this. 

THIS. 

This that will never make sense until you’re back in my life. 

So until then? 

I write. 

Until you come back I will write forever. 

Until this makes sense. 

Until my ink runs dry. 

Because these, like Taylor’s words she bought back from the machine for millions, are mine. My story. Me. Like a diary she said in her podcast with Travis. 

Because I will not be reduced to a whisper in margins,

I will not be erased in the footnotes of my own life.

Or yours. 

No, I don’t want to be reduced to what I already am to you but will forever write how I wish I wasn’t. 
Nothing. No one. 

I’ll continue to try to resurrect your ghost with ink.

Even if I know dead is what you’ll always be. 

A small part of me will always believe in the you I believed you to be:

The you who promised you’d never leave. My heart will break forever, will always grieve.

And that? That is on you not me. 

I’ll always believe this isn’t what you want.

Past tense, present tense, future tense. 

That I, too, am your 2 am ghost.

but...

neither one of has to be…
Footnotes.